Prof. Alafair Burke Comments on the Dewey & LeBoeuf ‘Secret Seven’

They are the mysterious seven: former employees of Dewey & LeBoeuf who pleaded guilty to taking part in a four-year plan to manipulate the financial statements of the once prominent law firm, but whose identities and plea agreements are being kept under wraps by New York prosecutors. …

… Defense lawyers say the continued sealing of those cases is akin to the way prosecutors often handle organized crime cases or an undercover investigation.

“It’s not the typical process,” said Alafair S. Burke, a criminal law professor at the Hofstra University School of Law and a writer of crime novels. Ms. Burke said she could understand the prosecutors wanting to keeping secret the names of people who had pleaded guilty if there was a fear of witness-tampering or witness intimidation. But that seems unlikely in what is essentially a white-collar accounting fraud case, she said.